{"id":845048,"date":"2026-03-23T14:06:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T14:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/845048\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T14:06:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T14:06:35","slug":"dan-ballard-ruled-out-of-northern-irelands-world-cup-play-off-against-italy-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/845048\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Ballard ruled out of Northern Ireland\u2019s World Cup play-off against Italy \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dan Ballard has been ruled out of Northern Ireland\u2019s World Cup qualifying play-off semi-final against Italy on Thursday with a hamstring injury.<\/p>\n

The news had been expected after Ballard sat out Sunderland\u2019s 2-1 win over rivals Newcastle on Sunday with the injury he suffered in last week\u2019s defeat at the hands of Brighton.<\/p>\n

It is another significant blow for Michael O\u2019Neill, who is already without Liverpool\u2019s Conor Bradley for Thursday\u2019s match in Bergamo, the winner of which will face either Wales or Bosnia-Herzegovina for a place at this summer\u2019s World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n

\"BlackburnBlackburn Rovers’ Tom Atcheson has been drafted into the Northern Ireland squad as a replacement for the injured Dan Ballard (Nigel French\/Nigel French\/PA Wire) <\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill has replaced Ballard in his 28-man squad with 19-year-old defender Tom Atcheson, who the manager has been working with directly since taking the Blackburn job alongside his international duties last month.<\/p>\n

\"Partick<\/a>\"Alfie<\/a><\/p>\n

It is a first senior call-up for Atcheson, who has played at several youth levels up to the under-21s for Northern Ireland. This season he has made eight first-team appearances for Rovers, starting their goalless draw with Middlesbrough on Saturday.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill\u2019s squad met up in Liverpool on Sunday night and will spent the week training in the city before flying to Bergamo on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Sunderland defender missed derby win over Newcastle due to hamstring injury<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dan Ballard has been ruled out of Northern Ireland\u2019s World Cup qualifying play-off semi-final against Italy on Thursday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":845049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[138587,1144,16,15,45880],"class_list":["post-845048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-michael-o-neill","tag-northern-ireland","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-world-cup-qualifiers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116278879234777383","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}